D&D with checkpoints?!

[Omegaxicor]

One of my players expressed the idea of having "safe areas" where the party could rest and, if they suffer a Total Party Knockout, are returned to...basically making Checkpoints.

Does that take anything away from the fun of risk or is that a good safety net in case the dice "hiccup"?

(one of my players says his dice "Hiccup" whenever he gets a run of four or five bad rolls in a row)

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

One of my players expressed the idea of having "safe areas" where the party could rest and, if they suffer a Total Party Knockout, are returned to...basically making Checkpoints.

Does that take anything away from the fun of risk or is that a good safety net in case the dice "hiccup"?

(one of my players says his dice "Hiccup" whenever he gets a run of four or five bad rolls in a row)

There's no right or wrong way to play DnD.
I've never seen or heard of it being done and I'd probably not want to play in such a game.

 

[Omegaxicor]

Your reasoning behind not wanting to play is?

 

[Crothian]

If I were to do this I would come up with a reason why this happens. Maybe the god of Death has an interest in what the PCs are doing and won't let them die. I would still have each time they have to use a checkpoint come with some kind of cost. Maybe they start out with 1 hit point each and no spells. Or they suffer temporary attribute point lose. They might want to just stay there and heal but then food ad water would run out. Or it might be that they don't know where the checkpoint is and it is different every time. It could have them get moved all over the world in some random way.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Does that take anything away from the fun of risk or is that a good safety net in case the dice "hiccup"?

Because it removes the major risk in a combat, for me it would remove the tension that most combats present and it would make victories less rewarding.

But like Alaxk said, there's no wrong way to play D&D. If you and your players enjoy the checkpoint idea, by all means give it a try!

 

[Ramaster]

There was an old and weird combo using psionics (some kind of rewind time power plus contingency or some such) that let you, virtually, create "Checkpoints" where you get returned to if the conditions set by the contingency get met (i.e. a TPK).

Answering your question, I wouldn’t like to play in such a game either. Death is a part of the game; it is what motivates players to take the "Right" options and to act in character. No death means no consequences for reckless behavior, and that leads to a much more gameist approach to roleplaying.

If they die, then bad luck. Either something happens in-game that makes the campaign move forward still (they get raised by allies, for example) or you just learn from your mistakes, roll some new PCs and start over.

But, as usual, play what YOU like!

 

[Goonalan]

One of my players expressed the idea of having "safe areas" where the party could rest and, if they suffer a Total Party Knockout, are returned to...basically making Checkpoints.

Does that take anything away from the fun of risk or is that a good safety net in case the dice "hiccup"?

(one of my players says his dice "Hiccup" whenever he gets a run of four or five bad rolls in a row)

The safe area is where the DM wants to put them- they may be back in town, or else with the agreement of the DM the players could withdraw from the dungeon (or whatever) and hide in such a way as to guarantee they will not be attacked. The players may even construct a safe area within the dungoen/scenraio using spells, and... stuff- but making a safe room, a save point?

I mean its your game but... it just sounds like the player is scared of dying, or else D&D to them is a game to score points (and get more stuff, and win)- not build characters, stories and worlds.

If the players want to keep their characters a while then sort out individual patrons who will raise them, or do that in game via angels or devils and the like. Or have it purchasable at the local church- although to pay for it may take them on another adventure.

If you make death too easy to overcome- 'bingo! I'm back again.' Then getting killed is nothing to be frightened of, as a DM what are you going to do to make them feel like stuff has value, to make them try different things and better choices in-game, to stay alive rather than to respawn again and again.

Your the DM, you set the level of danger, is this one player or all the players- if its all then maybe the dial is too high, if its one... kill his PC, as soon as you can (kidding).

As for dice hiccup, I think the player is maybe confusing the random nature of dice rolling with his or her inability to appreciate that for every success there's a fail. Suck it up buddy, or else get a hat.

Is the next suggestion going to be for 10th level PCs to go XP farming in dungeons designed for Level 1 PCs...

"Whatchew doin' nex' Conan, Drizz'zt, Bigby, Tenser et al?"

"We're going 'round the Caves of Chaos, level 1-3- it'll be our 20th trip. It's a doozy, Conan there is armed with a flip-flop; Drizz'zt got his pea shooter and the wizards can only use their wands as melee weapons- its a hoot. Although Bigby skinned his knee real bad las' time."

Cheers Goonalan

 

[Li Shenron]

One of my players expressed the idea of having "safe areas" where the party could rest and, if they suffer a Total Party Knockout, are returned to...

Here are two different things: (a) safe areas to rest, and (b) restore points.

(a) Have always been in the game. Unless your campaign setting is an especially dangerous one where you're in danger everywhere, characters always have safe places to spend their downtime, be it your character's home, the nearest village or tavern and so on.

But you probably mean safe areas in the middle of a dangerous place such as a dungeon. I think it has been part of accepted D&D tradition (although how common, I really don't know) to allow a party of PC to rest in the middle of a large dungeon, but finding a "safe" area (and identifying it as such!) is usually up to the players' ability. It's something that the DM and players can agree upon, but not all DM would just give that away, and would at least include the possibility of a random encounter to maintain more verisimilitude (and to make the choice of resting in hostile ground a significant strategic choice). Guaranteeing that some areas of a dungeon are truly safe somewhat challenges your suspension of disbelief: it is something I don't like as a player, thus I wouldn't be happy to be asked for as a DM either.

But it's very situational... maybe your typical game involve loooong dungeon crawls. If your dungeon is the entire "underdark", then you can treat it not so differently from a forest or a battle-plagued region, where relatively safe areas should exist but 100% safety is generally not guaranteed.

(b) is a completely different thing, and IMHO it's very alien to tabletop RPG. YMMV, but for me character death is a very important element in a RPG. A game where your PC cannot die, or cannot die without player's consent, but still death exists from the PC's point of view, is not uncommon at all in the world of D&D, and I don't have anything against it (as long as the same rule applies to all players).

But a game where you can in fact die, but then you just restart... that's something I would have issues with. Once again, there better be some explanation, whatever unreal. For example, all characters are in fact immortal for some reasons, maybe they're already ghosts, revenants, or angels/demons. Or maybe they are all in a magical land where anyone who dies just comes back again.

If you use such story concepts, I think you'll do fine. Whatever weird, everyone can agree it's just part of the story, or maybe finding out why/how it happens is in fact the purpose of the adventure.

But if it's not part of the story, and it's only just a hand-waved meta-rules, I think it can easily mess you everyone's suspension of disbelief, make the game feel cheesy and nerdy (like playing with an "infinite lives cheat"), degrading the value of winning battles because if you fail you just reset-load-restart. No thrills...

It might actually be still fun for a very, very "stress-light" one-shot game, but on the second night IMHO it may already be too boring (have you ever played a computer game with infinite lives... twice?), so if it's worth one night only why not rather play a fully lethal one-shot game?

 

[delericho]

One of my players expressed the idea of having "safe areas" where the party could rest and, if they suffer a Total Party Knockout, are returned to...basically making Checkpoints.

Right, so they're basically save points in video games?

(Incidentally, aren't video games moving away from using these, because people objected even to being bumped back to the last "save point"? I thought the new standard was to just save regularly, and especially before every significant new encounter?)

Does that take anything away from the fun of risk or is that a good safety net in case the dice "hiccup"?

Well, of course it takes away a measure of risk! After all, that means you can't ever really lose; all you do is revert back to the save point. That doesn't mean it's inherently a bad thing - it's just a matter of playstyle choice.

I personally wouldn't use such a thing in my game, and wouldn't play in a game that implements such a thing. I feel that without that element of risk there's little to no point in playing. But, of course, YMMV.

Edit: Actually, my campaign did recently "revert to saved", but it wasn't because of a character death. Basically, I screwed up on time management at the end of a session, leaving us stuck in the middle of a combat that looked like lasting another hour or so (and at 11pm at night, when we all had work the next day). Rather than slog it out to the end, or ending the session in mid-combat, we instead agreed to revert the group back to a point a little before that encounter.

 

[Goonalan]

Your reasoning behind not wanting to play is?

Because the game sounds dull, sorry for answering for someone else.

I'm a newbie to D&D only been playing/DMing for 33 years and my truth is we started with Monty Haul dungeons at the age of 11- rooms full of gold and magic items and half-a-dozen red dragons which we killed, or tamed, or polymorphed in to buxom wenches.

Fast forward 33 years and my players have to fight for their lives more often than not, and for almost no reward- save story, the plot and their characters.

And they die.

And because death is mostly permanent they get better, or else try things differently, they learn lessons.

If players can respawn why make encounters more difficult, why not as a DM change things as the encounters go bad... the cavalry arrives, or else the Dark Lord remembers he has an appointment at the dentist. But make it story...

And I get that sometimes the dice go bad for you but that's the game, it's a game of chance- no matter how certain you are your PC is going to win through then the - '1' comes up, or worse still the much feared '1' followed by '1'- I've seen a 12th level Paladin end his days with those two rolls, and we still talk about it to this day (it was in 1993). Or how certain you are that you're all doomed, then- '20', and in the old days with the crits '20' followed '00'- did I tell you about the 3rd Level Illusionist (Hireling) that saved the entire party by killing an Ancient Red Dragon with a plus 1 magical dagger straight between the eyes.

Random is great, because anything- anything can happen.

Remove death then why not remove the dice... that'd be easier, save you having to keep respawning, get the players to tell you what they rolled.

Obviously do your thing, and fair play to you... but make it story rather than a room that says 'safe'.